Proper Names: Differences Between Aboriginal and Colonial Toponymy

In a broader Australian context, Chapter 3 questions the assumption of equivalence in replacing colonial placenames with Indigenous ones. Renaming and dual naming initiatives are neo-colonialist when they fail to tackle the challenge of incommensurable senses of place. Assimilation occurs in different ways: through writing’s fetish with the standardised form, through planning’s use of names to assert property ownership and through the profounder failure to understand the ‘no man’s land’ conjured up in colonial nomenclature. A well-known place naming controversy (Grampians/Gariwerd in Western Victoria) is discussed in these contexts, and the ironies of the current Melbourne/Naarm renaming are exposed. These examples suggest that both elements of placenames—descriptor as well as qualifier—need to be decolonised. Recognising that the toponymy of Indigenous landscapes involves a regional poetic economy, the role of relational terms embedded in microtoponymy becomes important.